Ecology in Light of Integral Human Development

By |2023-07-30T21:45:26-05:00July 30th, 2023|Categories: Caritas in Veritate, Catholicism, Communio, Conservation, David L. Schindler, Environmentalism, Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Francis, Romano Guardini, St. John Paul II, Timeless Essays|

Every being is good because it is created. To be created is to be loved into existence by God. Every creature is thus good in itself, both because it is loved by God and because, as a participant in this love of God for it, each creature also loves itself. Because all creatures share in [...]

The Ukraine War, the Pope, & the West

By |2023-05-10T18:32:52-05:00May 10th, 2023|Categories: Europe, Foreign Affairs, Pope Francis, Ukraine, Viktor Orbán|

We believe in a Europe of nations. The only remedy is to strengthen nations—not only Hungary, but nations in general. This is the basis of Western culture, this is the basis of Western competitive advantage, this—the nations—is what made the West great. On May 5, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán was interviewed on the Kossuth Radio [...]

Encounters With God’s Mercy in Confession & Pilgrimage

By |2022-04-29T15:59:42-05:00April 29th, 2022|Categories: Books, Catholicism, Christianity, Pope Francis, Virtue|

Sin, on the whole, is choosing our will over God’s, and it leads to our greatest unhappiness, even if we don’t always realize it in the beginning. The darkness and mire of sin, however, melts away against the backdrop of the Father’s love. According to the National Catholic Register, “the Catholic jubilee has added spiritual [...]

Mercy as a Reality Illuminated by Reason

By |2022-08-10T15:51:45-05:00December 26th, 2018|Categories: Catholicism, Charity, Christian Humanism, Communio, David L. Schindler, Pope Francis|

In his apostolic exhortation, Evangelii gaudium [EG], Pope Francis insists that we need to anchor our approach to the Church’s missionary task in the Incarnate Word as the principle of reality (“il criterio di realtà”: 233). This principle can be a guide for “the development of life in society and the building of a people,” [...]

Can an Alfie Evans Case Happen in the United States?

By |2018-05-17T00:29:18-05:00May 17th, 2018|Categories: Christianity, Culture, Death, Europe, Government, Politics, Pope Francis, Rights, Rule of Law|

In the case of the now-deceased toddler, Alfie Evans, the British government, through its Royal College of Pediatrics and its courts, had legal authority. Alfie had legal “interests,” which the government defined in his case, but he did not have any “rights.” Alfie’s parents only had a right to be heard; they had no substantive rights or [...]

Francis Under Fire: Lawler and Douthat Critique the Pope

By |2018-04-13T15:50:55-05:00April 7th, 2018|Categories: Books, Catholicism, Christianity, Dwight Longenecker, Liberal, Liberalism, Pope Francis|

Two conservative authors have assessed Pope Francis’ pontificate with devastating results… Lost Shepherd: How Pope Francis is Misleading His Flock by Philip Lawler (256 pages, Gateway Editions, 2018) To Change the Church: Pope Francis and the Future of Catholicism by Ross Douthat (256 pages, Simon & Schuster, 2018) Five years into his papacy and poor Pope Francis is [...]

Pope Francis and the Caring Society

By |2018-02-17T21:57:13-06:00February 17th, 2018|Categories: Books, Capitalism, Catholicism, Christianity, Dwight Longenecker, Economics, Pope Francis|

A critique of American materialism is extraordinarily challenging, as it is cloaked in a heresy that is subtle, smooth, and sweet. The problem is that the Pope is not really up to such a challenging challenge… Pope Francis and the Caring Society edited by Robert M. Whaples (256 pages, Independent Institute, 2017) It is perhaps [...]

My Random, Bold Predictions for 2018

By |2018-01-04T16:59:45-06:00January 3rd, 2018|Categories: Christianity, Civil Society, Conservatism, Culture, Donald Trump, Dwight Longenecker, Europe, Islam, Politics, Pope Francis, Sexuality|

Let it be known that I am not a prophet, and I will quite happily eat crow, eat my hat, eat my words… eat whatever is necessary when my prognostications prove preposterous and my prophecies prove to be not prophetic, but pathetic. Nevertheless, with my finger to the wind and my squinty eye on the [...]

Pope Francis and the Caring Society

By |2022-12-31T08:48:42-06:00September 30th, 2017|Categories: Adam Smith, Books, Catholicism, Christianity, Civil Society, Compassion, Louis Markos, Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Francis, St. John Paul II, Virtue|

I’ve not been fully sure what to “make” of Pope Francis. He is clearly a man of God with a deep love for the poor and an even deeper personal humility. But how is one to respond to his pronouncements on economic and environmental issues? Pope Francis and the Caring Society, ed. Robert M. Whaples (Independent [...]

Should We Build Walls?

By |2017-07-31T23:48:09-05:00March 3rd, 2016|Categories: Featured, Foreign Affairs, Fr. James Schall, Immigration, Politics, Pope Francis, Presidency|

The recent spat of words between Pope Francis and Donald Trump over the relative merits of bridges and walls deserves some further comment. Both words, “bridge” and “wall,” have their precise meanings. As such, though they are not the same thing, they are not opposed to each other. We need them both. If we try [...]

The Donald Trumps the Pope?

By |2016-05-13T17:00:17-05:00February 23rd, 2016|Categories: Catholicism, Donald Trump, Politics, Pope Francis, Presidency|

The world was recently witness to a kerfuffle between two of the most infamous off-the-cuff speakers in the world: Pope Francis and Donald J. Trump. Pope Francis is well-known for getting a rise out of Catholics through ambiguous, spontaneous, airborne pronouncements, while Mr. Trump is well-known for getting a rise out of Americans through aggressive, [...]

Appeals to the Heart: Pope Francis in the Belly of a Paradox

By |2015-12-26T22:43:31-06:00December 27th, 2015|Categories: Christianity, Pope Francis, Truth, Virtue|

During his recent trip to America, Pope Francis sought to answer a fundamental problem posed by C.S. Lewis in his 1942 sermon “The Weight of Glory.” Lewis was responding to the perception of Christianity as a negative religion, concerned primarily with the virtue of Unselfishness, rather than with Love. In the New Testament, however, Christ [...]

Pope Francis: The Capitalist

By |2021-02-08T16:32:52-06:00November 18th, 2015|Categories: Capitalism, Economics, Pope Francis|

It has been said by some of his critics that Pope Francis does not understand capitalism, having grown up in Peronist Argentina. This may be true. But it is also true that the economic system which is now a way of life in our own country is not exactly free enterprise as the proponents of [...]

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